BELMAR — After superstorm Sandy, it took six straight days of pumping 60,000 gallons of water per minute to dry out residential streets around Silver Lake, at the north end of the borough.

For that, residents are grateful for the efforts of officials.

However, pumping out all that water has now left Silver Lake essentially a big pile of muck — and more than a bit of an eyesore.

“People come by all day long and take pictures,” said North Lake Drive resident Victoria DiLorenzo. “Everyone asks what happened.”

What happened, according to officials, is that prior to Sandy, the borough wanted to try to lower the level of the lake, in anticipation of flooding.

After the storm, the borough ran nine pumps, sending water from the lake to the ocean, 24 hours a day.

But when the work was done, there was no lake left.

“One quarter of a square mile was flooded on the streets,” said Mayor Matthew Doherty. “As we kept pumping the water out, it kept coming up from the ground.”

Making the situation worse, debris from Sandy kept getting pulled into Silver Lake from the suction of the pumps. It was another reason why the borough decided to take it down to mud level.

“It was part of our debris removal. All sorts of debris found its way in, from park benches to you name it,” said Doherty.

Doherty said that when workers drained the lake, they also pulled excess water out of residents’ flooded basements.

DiLorenzo was home the night of Oct. 29, when Sandy hit, and had to be rescued the next day by police on watercraft because of the flood level.

She described the wall of ocean water as a “funnel” rushing down the streets from the south side of the lake about 8 p.m. In no time, water went from the curb to the height of her first-floor window — four feet off the ground.

It was that way for a lot of the homes that surround the lake from Fifth to Eighth avenues.

“I couldn’t get back to the house for a week. The water just didn’t recede,” said Robert Mullen, whose 100-year old Dutch Colonial home is uninhabitable.

Mullen has lived by the lake for 40 years and said he never saw the area come close to a flood like that before. The water mark turned an evergreen shrub on his yard ash gray.

Doherty said that although the lake is empty, the borough has begun to dredge it to hold more water for future flood control — a project he said officials have wanted to do.